'Mission' Accomplished -- Not

Click on image to enlarge

Tom Cruise was being blamed Monday for the failure of Paramount's Mission: Impossible III to live up to analysts' expectations at the box office over the weekend. The film took in an estimated $48 million in its domestic debut, about $10 million less than Mission: Impossible II garnered in its 2000 premiere. Analysts maintained that Cruise's sometimes outrageous behavior in recent months, including his sofa-jumping on Oprah Winfrey's show, his defense of Scientology, his confrontation with Today show host Matt Lauer over psychotropic medication, and his seemingly non-stop promotion of M:I:III may have irked fans. Today's (Monday) New York Times commented that Cruise "has evolved into a kind of cultural punch line." The New York Daily News observed that perhaps the "real mission impossible was selling a movie whose star spent the last year jumping on couches." Variety remarked that "aud[ience]s seemingly grew weary of Tom Cruise's pervasive media presence." "The summer movie season started with a fizzle," is the way the Los Angeles Times led off its report on the film's debut. Nevertheless, whatever it was that slowed ticket sales of the movie in the U.S. and Canada had little effect overseas, where the movie launched with $70.3 million. Meanwhile, the box office for United 93 tumbled 55 percent in its second week.


The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations: 1. Mission: Impossible III, $48 million; 2. R.V., $11.1 million; 3. An American Haunting, $6.4 million; 4. Stick It, $5.5 million; 5. United 93, $5.2 million; 6. Ice Age: The Meltdown, $4 million; 7. Silent Hill, $3.9 million; 8. Scary Movie 4, $3.8 million; 9. (tie). Akeelah and the Bee, $3.4 million; 9. (tie). Hoot, $3.4 million.